CS Lunch talk Monday, October 31

Ben Turner and Ethan Jucovy will discuss their summer research work with Professor Meeden

" The Babybot Experiment: a Developmental Approach to A.I. "

Developmental robotics is a relatively young sub-field of Artificial Intelligence which attempts to apply principles from developmental psychology and neuroscience to build better, more robust, more independent robots. This talk will present an overview of some of the important concepts to consider when programming a robot brain to learn about and from its own environment. Then we will discuss the Babybot experiment, an application of developmental robotics in which a simulated robot was given similar capabilities and motivations as a human infant, and allowed to explore a virtual world. Finally, we will mention some of the obstacles encountered and opportunities afforded by an implementation of Babybot in a real robot.